GRAND RAPIDS -- Somewhere in the midst of ArtPrize, several cell phone companies and a text messaging aggregator lie the answers to a frustrating glitch: why voters were unable use Sprint, Verizon or T-Mobile to cast votes at the opening of the ArtPrize 2010 competition.

Questions continued to linger today about who dropped the ball, and why only two cell phone companies -- AT&T and Sprint -- as of Tuesday were able to handle the ArtPrize text votes.

Contest officials say they began the process to streamline the text voting last spring, early enough to have the needed SMS code ready last Wednesday -- opening day in the $450,000 competition.

But one cell phone company, Verizon Wireless, said Tuesday it wasn't provided the short code "808080" early enough to activate it for SMS voting on its network.

"Usually our process takes eight to 10 weeks, but we didn't get the short code until early September," said spokeswoman Michelle Gilbert, from Verizon's office in Southfield.

Another provider, Sprint, also said Tuesday it was given Oct. 7 as the starting date, which is the day after the end of ArtPrize voting.

CellTrust Corp., the aggregator ArtPrize hired to set up the short code, declined to answer specific questions Tuesday. But Kevin Mosher, president and COO of the company based in Scottsdale, Ariz., said the company is working to resolve the problems, caused in part because "the demand for short codes has been escalated."

"We recognize the frustration this has caused for all organizations involved and for the voters," Mosher said.

By Tuesday evening, text message voting via Sprint became available, and more than 27,000 active voters in all had cast more than 258,000 votes in the competition founded by entrepreneur Rick DeVos. The first round of voting ends at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.

Verizon continued to work Tuesday on the problem, which was a legal matter and not a technical issue, according to Gilbert.

"It has to go through our legal department because there's some form of a contract in terms of who pays for what," she said. "This wasn't a matter of Verizon not wanting to be involved. In fact, we've been loaning some wireless modems to ArtPrize."

Another question left unanswered is why the public wasn't alerted to the problem earlier -- before text votes were cast that couldn't be counted. ArtPrize has since acknowledged it knew SMS voting was not operating on Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon when the event opened.

TROUBLESHOOTING

Here's what to do if you've cast SMS votes during ArtPrize 2010 via Sprint, T-Mobile or Verizon:

What if I already used text message to send votes?

Regretfully, if you are not an AT&T customer and you sent in votes via text message, it is likely you will have to resubmit those votes.

If you believe you cast votes via text message that do not appear in your Voting History, we recommend one of two things:

Use your phone to find your votes
• Check your phone for all votes you sent to 808080
• Enter the 5-digit code manually to the artprize.org search box

Or browse through venues
• You can probably recall the venues you have visited. Click into each venue that you visited and browse the artists within that venue on artprize.org.
• Find the one's you voted for and vote online.

Need help using your cell phone to vote during ArtPrize 2010? The ArtPrize trouble shooting support line is 258-6045.

Source: ArtPrize.org

Sprint representatives, however, on Tuesday said they weren't made aware of the problem until Monday, some five days after the opening of ArtPrize.

"Once Sprint was notified on Sept. 27 that the program was not live at the start of ArtPrize 2010, Sprint activated the short code within two hours," said Scott Henderson, Sprint district manager in Grand Rapids.

ArtPrize officials sent a memo last Friday to its exhibition centers and registration sites on the matter, hoping activation would happen over the weekend, but posted nothing on its website before Monday.

"Our approach was cautious, but opaque," said Paul Moore, ArtPrize director of communications, on the ArtPrize's website on Tuesday.

ArtPrize officials did not return calls seeking comment.

ArtPrize's staff at The Hub, its media center in the Old Federal Building, on Tuesday continued to caution cell phone voters that they should receive a response after voting via text message. No response likely means their vote wasn't cast.

Voters also were advised they could check their cell phone's outgoing text message history and use the information to vote online at artprize.org.

ArtPrize, meanwhile, began distancing itself from text voting on its website posts.

"Keep in mind that text voting has always been an additional tool to use, not the foundational mechanism, which is artprize.org," Moore said.